GIRLS SOCCER: Defense carries Boyertown past Spring-Ford

ROYERSFORD — Boyertown’s defense has been strong all year, but it really had to be at the top of its game Wednesday night as Spring-Ford controlled the ball for the first 10 minutes of the key Pioneer Athletic Conference girls soccer match and didn’t let up much the rest of the way.

But it was the Bears who finally put together a couple of passes in front of the goal and Jill Bertino scored in the 88th minute to give Boyertown a 1-0 win at Coach McNelly Stadium. That clinched at least second place in the Liberty Division for the Bears (9-1-1, 10-1-2 overall) and a spot in the Final Four playoffs with two games remaining. It also meant third-place Spring-Ford (5-3-2, 7-4-2) was eliminated from contention.

“You’ve got to give Spring-Ford a lot of credit,” said Bear coach Bill Goddard. “They’re well-coached and they’re organized. They play soccer. Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.”

“It was a great game,” said Rams coach Sheldon Chamberlain, whose team also could not score on Monday night in a double-overtime scoreless tie against Perkiomen Valley. “That’s been the situation for a lot of games. We dominated the first 10 minutes of the game. We were possessing. We possessed a lot of minutes of that game, and they played hard.”

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The Rams wound up with a 10-7 advantage in shots on goal and a 6-5 edge in corner kicks. But those figures didn’t come anywhere close to showing the dominance in time of possession and field position enjoyed by Spring-Ford.

While the hosts were putting six shots on goal in the first half and barely missing out on some other opportunities, the Bears had only one good set of chances. That came in the 28th minute when Emily Diehl found Lauren Mengel with a long pass for a shot that was knocked over the end line. That gave the visitors a corner kick and Diehl uncorked a kick toward the left corner, but Ram keeper Haley Puckett (six saves) made the grab.

Spring-Ford had a chance to score with three minutes to go until the half when Simone Stewart controlled the ball among several Bear defenders, but Boyertown keeper Sarafina Valenti (n ine saves) came off the line to break up the play. Then Puckett did the same to stop a threat by Diehl a couple of minutes later and keep the match scoreless at the half.

The Rams kept it up in the second half and nearly scored with 27 minutes to go when Gabby Vagnozzi lobbed a long one from the left wing over the leaping Valenti, but the ball hit the crossbar. The hosts had another near miss about four minutes later when AleyKate McKinley put a corner kick from the left directly out in front of the goal for a Ram header, but Valenti made the save.

Finally, Emily Diehl knocked a crossing pass from left to right to Bertino, who booted in the game-winner with just 2:26 remaining in regulation.

That averted another possible overtime game for the Bears, who had also played a double-overtime scoreless tie on Monday against division leader Owen J. Roberts.

“We were just trying to score,” said Bertino. “We didn’t want to go into another double overtime. We weren’t really playing our best, actually. But we really needed to win to assure ourselves of getting in the playoffs. So we really came to win.”

Boyertown has been riding its defense all year and has now racked up 10 shutouts in a row.

“To our kids’ credit, defense has been a constant all year,” Goddard explained. “Defense is going to keep us in the game.“

But that just made it even harder on the Rams, who have had difficulty scoring against the better teams on their schedule.

“It’s been a problem for us,” said Chamberlain. “We played a beautiful game right down to the six-yard line. But you can’t win games without goals.”